[North Bridge. __ 362 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH.
Magazine (started in Edinburgh), and minister of? son of Sir Michael Balfour of Denmylne. An emithe
Congregational church in Glasgow. I nent physician and botanist, he was born in 1630,
In 1828, on the 8th of June-the fiftieth year of graduated in medicine at St. Andrews, prosecuted
his ministry being complete-a hundred gentlemen, his medical studies under the famous Harvey in
? connected with Lady Glenorchy?s chapel, enter- I London, after which he visited Blois, to see the
t:tined Dr. Jones at a banquet given in his honour , celebrated botanical garden of the Duke de ~~ at the Waterloo Tavern, and presented him ?with
an elegant silver vase, as a tribute of the respect
and esteem which the people entertained for the
..uniform uprightness of his conduct during the long
period they had enjoyed his ministry.?
Lady Glenorchy?s chapel and school were alike
demolished in 1845, as stated. The former, as a
foundation, is now in Roxburgh Place, as a chapel
in connection with the Establishment. ? It has now
a quoad sacm district attached to it,? says FuZZarton?s
Gazetteer; ?? the charge h 1835 was collegiate.
<There is attached to the chapel a school attended
by IOO or 120 poor children.?
In the same quiet and secluded hollow, overlooked
by the Trinity Church and Hospital, the
Orphan Hospital, and the Glenorchy Chapel-in
the very bed of. what was once the old loch, and
where now prevail all the bustle and uproar of
one of the most confused of railway termini, and
where, ever and anon, the locomotive sends up its
shriek to waken the echoes of the Calton rocks 01
the enormous masses of the Post-office buildings,
and those which flank the vast Roman-like span of
the Regent Bridge-lay the old Physic Gardens,
for the creation of which Edinburgh was indebted
to one or two of her eminent physicians in the
seventeenth century.
They extended between the New Port at the
foot of Halkerston?s Wynd, i.e., from the east side 01
the north bridge to the garden of the Trinity
College Hospital, which Lord Cockburn describes
as being ?? about a hundred feet square ; but it is
only turf surrounded by a gravel walk. An old
thorn, and an old elm, destined never to be in leaf
again, tell of old springs and old care. And there
is a wooden summer house, which has heard many
ipi old man?s crack, and seen the sun soften many
an old man?s wrinkles.?
In Gordon of Rothiemay?s view this particular
garden (now among the things that were) is shown
as extending from the foot of Halkerston?s Wyiid
to the west gable of the Trinity Hospital, and
northward in a line with the tower of the church.
From the New Port, the Physic Garden, occupying
much of that we have described, lay north
cross the valley, to where a path between hedgerows
led to the Orphan Hospital. It is thus shown
in Edgar?s plan, in 1765. .
1 It owed its origin to Sir Andrew Balfour, the
Guise, then kept by his countryman Dr. Robert
Morison, author of the ?? Hortus Regius Bloisensis,?
and afterwards, in 1669, professor of botany at
Oxford.
In 1667 Balfour commenced to practise as a
physician in St. Andrews, but in 1670 he removed
to Edinburgh, where among other improvements he
introduced the manufacture of paper into Scotland.
Having a small botanical garden attached to his
house, and chiefly furnished with rare seeds sent by
his foreign correspondents, he raised there many
plants never before seen in Scotland. His friend
and botanical pupil, Mr. Patrick Murray of Livingstone,
had formed at his seat a botanic garden containing
fully a thousand specimens of plants ; and
after his death Dr. Balfour transferred the whole
of this collection to Edinburgh, and, joining it to
his own, laid the foundation of the first botanic
garden in Scotland, for which the magistrates allotted
him a part of the Trinity garden, and then,
through the patronage of Sir Robert Sibbald, the
eminent physician and naturalist, Mr. James Sutherland,
an experienced botanist, was appointed headgardener.
After this Balfour was created a baronet by
Charles 11. He was the first who introduced the
dissection of the hunian body into Scotland; he
planned the present Royal College of Physicians,
projected the great hospital now known as the
Royal Infirmary; and died full of honours in 1694,
bequeathing his museum to the university.
It was in September, 1676, that he placed the
superintending of the Physic Garden under James
Sutherland, who was by profession a gardener, but
of whose previous history little is known. ? By his
ownindustry,? says Sir Robert SibbaId, ?heobtained
to great knowledge of plants,? and seems to have
been one of those self-made men of whom Scotland
has produced so many of whom she may well be
proud. In 1683 he published his ?Norizcs Nedicus
Edinburgensis, or a catalogue of the plants in the
Physic Gardens at Edinburgh, containing the
most proper Latin and English names,? dedicated
to the Lord Provost, Sir George Drummond. In
his little garden in the valley of the North Loch
he taught the science of herbs to the students of
medicine for small fees, receiving no other encouragement
than a salary of A20 from the city, which
did not suffice to pay rent and Servants? wages, to
